In modern multimedia environments, e.g. environments for digital video production typically comprising several digital cameras, display monitors, scanners etc., large amounts of high resolution multimedia data is transferred via a high speed network connecting the aforementioned devices also referred to as network devices. For permanent storage of data a suitable storage device plays a key role in such a multimedia environment. Usually, a block based network storage device such as an array of hard disks or flash memories is connected to the network devices via a serial network, like Ethernet, FireWire or USB. A high data transfer rate to and from the network storage device is crucial for the performance of the whole multimedia environment, especially for real time applications.